There were many people this Wednesday afternoon in room 101 of the Strasbourg court. Not for the immediate appearance of two men who were prosecuted after using a Belgian identity card. No, about thirty people, including seven associations that had filed civil cases, had come to the next case. The one where a person was suspected of throwing his small dog from the fifth floor on Monday morning in a district of the Alsace capital. In particular, the victim of a broken spine, “Moka” had to be euthanized the next day as his abuse was too severe.
At the bar, Jérôme D. refuted the defenestration thesis that a witness accused him of. He assured that the animal had fallen on its own, attracted by “the duck liver paste [qu’il] had left on the edge of the window. “Why didn’t you put it in the fridge?” “, the judge then asked. “Because it’s a mess inside. There’s mold,” replied the forty-year-old, who was also at that time raising his blood alcohol level. He had been checked at 8 a.m. with 0.90 mg/liter of breath, after a troubled evening. “I had drunk strong beer and a bottle of red wine at 17° […] I faltered”, explained the defendant, unemployed and accommodated by the association “Horizon Amitié”.
His behavior in front of the inert body of the one-and-a-half-year-old Pekingese Crusader was condemned by several civil party lawyers. “His dog is dying and he’s quietly rolling a cigarette,” one tip pointed out. “When your animal has a problem, you don’t take an hour to react, or you don’t say in police custody that you’re going to make a stew out of it,” one of his colleagues added. “It was a bullshit joke”, had tried to clear Jérôme D., a few minutes earlier, who repeated his attachment to Moka: “I loved him too much, he was my little love dog”. “And a ‘damned dog’ too, as you also called him after your neighbors,” the presiding judge had then pointed out to him.
“He has lied from the start in this case. There is no paté that was found in the apartment or outside. His statements are a fable that they tell to avoid responsibility,” the public prosecutor pointed out. The latter asked for a year in prison with a permanent ban on owning an animal.
The defense, she, brought up her client’s weak legal record, just sentenced to two weeks in jail suspended for contempt. “Sir. D. takes care of her dog, which is not malnourished and has good hair. He never neglected it […] Yes, he should never have left the window open, but it was an unfortunate accident that happened,” pleaded his lawyer, asking for his release. “I loved my dog, that’s the truth,” the defendant insisted one last time.
Shortly after 7 p.m., the verdict was handed down. Jérôme D. was sentenced to twelve months in prison, eight of which are suspended. He is also permanently banned from keeping an animal and must pay restitution to each civil party. Including 1,200 euros to the animal protection association (SPA). “That sentence is up to par. We have the feeling of having been heard by the courts,” responded the manager of the Strasbourg SPA kennel, Catherine Bronner.